


Day Sixteen: Dark Room/Basement

by Euphorion



Series: Writober [16]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M, Zombies, wheee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 07:31:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8436844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euphorion/pseuds/Euphorion
Summary: Takao bounced on his feet a little bit, waiting for Hayama to answer the door. Maybe they should have called first, but he’d been so ready to just set off and solve this real-world—well, it wasn’t exactly a murder mystery, was it? Kind of an anti-murder mystery, really. Regardless, he wasn’t about to let it slip through his fingers, tenuous as this lead might be.





	

**Author's Note:**

> the continuation of one of the knb threads of this series, starts way back in [day three](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8200502). Last time we saw midotaka was in [day twelve.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8313568)

Takao bounced on his feet a little bit, waiting for Hayama to answer the door. Maybe they should have called first, but he’d been so ready to just set off and solve this real-world—well, it wasn’t exactly a murder mystery, was it? Kind of an anti-murder mystery, really. Regardless, he wasn’t about to let it slip through his fingers, tenuous as this lead might be. 

He admitted to himself that his interest in it was double-edged. The more obvious motivation was of course to ferret out how the hell the dead were coming back to life, like any responsible member of the living. But. He glanced at Midorima, still and silent at his side. There was something personal here, a loose end in the tight-woven shield of Midorima’s defenses, and the temptation to tug was unbearable. Takao had always been very bad at resisting temptation, and to resist when someone else could reach out and take it, to see someone else threaten to unravel Midorima in his place—

He’d always tried not to be jealous of the other Miracles. That Midorima had close connections with them had come as a surprise—he certainly sold himself as, and seemed to believe himself to be, someone with few close friendships. And Takao wouldn’t exactly call the Miracles friends in the way that he normally defined the term. They were something else, a complex tangle of friendship and rivalry and deep resentment, a structure of interpersonal indefinable relationships that had defined Midorima himself. They were the forces of nature which had carved Midorima into the magnificent thing he was, and for the most part Takao had been able to accept that. They had already been there when he had arrived on the scene, and were wholly alien to the role he wanted to play in Midorima’s life.

But. Akashi was the exception to that rule, and there was a rather large part of Takao that needed to solve whatever the hell was going on before he did just to stick it to his stupid impassive face.

He rang the doorbell again, but Hayama opened the door just as he did, his attention clearly elsewhere. “What?” he asked, and then shook his head as if to clear it. “Oh, hey, sorry, hi.”

Takao raised his eyebrows at him and gave him a small wave. “Hi,” he said. “Did we come at a bad time?”

Hayama shoved his hands in his pockets, his usually smiling eyes clouded with worry. “Sort of,” he said, looking from Takao to Midorima and back. “What’s up, do you need something?”

“We were hoping you knew where your friend Izuki is,” Midorima said, his voice polite as always but with an edge of suspicion. “We would like to ask him a few questions.”

Hayama laughed, but it sounded forced. “You guys sound like the FBI or something,” he said, and then paused a beat too long. “Sorry, I can’t help you, I dunno where he is.”

Takao snorted. “Hayama-kun, you’re a terrible liar.”

Midorima nodded agreement. “May we come in, please?”

Hayama hesitated, then seemed to wilt a little. He opened the door and gestured them inside. 

His apartment was in shambles. There were cardboard boxes piled everywhere, with no apparent organization. Takao had never been here before, but he got the distinct impression this wasn’t how Hayama usually lived. It looked more like someone’s attic than their living space.

Hayama shifted a stack of old books, their thrift-store price tags still on, off one of his chairs. “You want any tea, or anything?”

Midorima began to demur, but Takao cut him off. “Tea would be great, thank you,” he said, shooting a look at Midorima. The longer they were here, the more likely they could get Hayama to spill on Izuki’s whereabouts.

Midorima nodded, very slightly, and Takao smiled at him. They were getting better at the whole psychic connection thing every day.

“Cool,” Hayama said, sounding very much like he regretted the offer. “Here, c’mon into the kitchen, I’m sorry about the mess.”

They followed him, single-file in his narrow hallway. “Are you moving, Hayama-kun?” Takao asked, when the kitchen revealed itself to be in no better shape. Hayma seemed to have removed every spice he could find from his cabinets and set them out in rows on his table. There was a large cast-iron pot on his stove, covered with a lid, and although the stove was off a strange, thick steam leaked from the seam between the pot and the lid.

Hayama blinked at him. “What? Oh, no, I was just—doing some research, looking for something.” He coughed and snagged his kettle from on top of his fridge. “Anyway, what about you, what did you want to ask Izuki about?”

Takao glanced at Midorima, who sighed. “A friend of mine appears to have come back to life.”

Hayama stopped in the middle of extracting a pair of teacups from behind what looked like a bag filled with dead ivy. “Um,” he said. “Congratulations? What does that have to do with Izuki?”

Takao rolled his eyes. “Don’t be insulting” he said. “At the party Izuki’s _foot_ fell off. I’m pretty sure I could see through his cheek in places. The boy’s dead. Cute, but dead.”

Hayama set the teacups down a little too hard, his mouth pressed together.

“Indeed,” said Midorima with a sniff, “it was quite hard to ignore.”

Hayama stared at his hands. “I was hoping you guys were too drunk and um. Distracted to notice.”

Takao winced. He’d gotten a little out of hand at that party—too touchy, to overt. He wished very suddenly that he’d come here alone so that he could sigh and admit that he’d been secretly glad for the undead distraction because he knew himself and if he’d had another thirty seconds of uninterrupted drunken time straddling Midorima’s lap he would have done something truly irreversible, something that on a good day he might call a shortcut but on most days he’d call an unmitigated disaster.

But they weren’t here to have Hayama listen to his romantic woes, no matter how good a listener he always was (Takao suspected he had had a lot of practice), they were here to prevent the zombie apocalypse. Or something.

Midorima, leaning against the counter at his side, shifted slightly so their knees brushed. “We saw,” he said, not looking at Takao. “And now here we are.”

Takao tried to calm the beating of his heart and thought to himself, _well, maybe not_ most _days._

“So you want to ask Izuki how he got un-dead,” Hayama said, “and then—what?”

Midorima and Takao exchanged glances. “Reverse it,” Takao said slowly. “They’re zombies. Right?”

Midorima looked uncomfortable, but nodded. “Each of us has an appointed time to leave this earth,” he said, with the air he sometimes got, like he was reciting some sacred truth. “Lives without end are lives without meaning.”

The tea kettle screamed, and Hayama switched off the stove with quick, almost angry motions. “I can’t help you.”

“Hayama-kun,” Midorima said, surprisingly gently. “For now it is only two. But two is more than one, and I have no faith that it ends here.”

Takao nodded. “Not to, like, make light, but there’s kind of a whole genre of movies about what happens if you don’t stop zombies from happening.”  
Hayama lifted the kettle to pour, still not looking at their faces. “I’m not going to help you find Izuki so you can kill him.”

Takao bit his lip. “It’s not exactly killing him, is it—he already did the dying, it’s not the same—”

“For me it is,” Hayama snapped, his face obscured through the steam. “I never met him when he was alive. If I had—” he stopped himself, setting the kettle down, slow. “Maybe his old friends would understand, because they got him for—for years, they came to terms with the fact that he was gone, but I—this is the only Izuki I know, and I’m not going help you take him away from me.” He picked up one of the cups, passing it to Takao.

Takao accepted it, trying to read his face. “Hayama.”

Hayama passed Midorima his tea. “Drink this,” he said, “and then please go. I have a lot to do.”

Takao glanced sideways at Midorima, who set his tea down, eyes narrowed. “At the end of the day, it is not you who decides who should live and who should die.”

Takao watched Hayama raise his shoulders against another onslaught about the gods or Fate, but instead Midorima asked, “have you spoken to Izuki about what he wants?”

Hayama scowled. “What do you mean—”

Midorima folded his hands primly. “Do you think he enjoys this mockery of a life?”

Takao reached out to touch his shoulder. “Cruel, Shin-chan,” he murmured. 

Midorima didn’t shake him off, but he also didn’t relent. “He is falling apart, isn’t he?”

Hayama shifted on his feet as if shoved. “Wh-what?”

Midorima gestured around him. “These—accoutrements, ingredients. The books. You are trying to research the dark arts, find a way to keep his rotting body together.” He picked up his tea, blowing gently on it before taking a sip. “You will fail.”

Takao frowned. He understood the tactic, but there was making a point, and then there was crossing a line. “Shin-chan.”

Midorima reached up and picked up his hand. Takao expected him to merely remove it from his shoulder, but instead he transferred it to his other hand and threaded their fingers together, a completion of the gesture he’d begun in the graveyard. Takao stared at him.

“You are putting the lives of many at risk for a man who is already once dead and closing in upon a second, more final death.” For the first time, his voice softened slightly. “It is a selfish act, though an understandable one.” He stood up. “I do not begrudge you your time with him. When you have realized your efforts are in vain, however, I hope that you will reconsider.”

Hayama stared at him. “What—what are you going to do?”

Midorima looked at Takao. “We have another lead,” he said, and for a moment Takao had no idea what he meant. “Someone else who is looking into the resurrection of my friend.”

Takao scowled. “Yeah,” he said. “I suppose we do.”

Midorima squeezed his hand, and Takao’s black mood at the thought of working with Akashi on this melted and fizzed into some kind of warm golden nervousness. “We, um,” he said. “We should go,” because he needed to be in a place where he could react to this new hand-holding thing properly, thank you.

Midorima gave Hayama a half-bow and allowed Takao to tug him from the room and out of the door. When they were on the street, however, he stopped, and Takao turned, pivoted on their still-joined hands. 

Midorima looked down at him, his green eyes at once soft and certain, an expression Takao had never seen before. “Kazunari,” he said, and Takao’s heart fucking stopped. Midorima searched his face. “We can stop here.”

Takao stared at him, his mouth dry. Did—did he mean with the handholding? “What,” he said, and then stopped, because Midorima was running his thumb over the pulse-point of his wrist, and he was very _close_ , and it was making it very difficult to form coherent sentences.

Midorima licked his lips. “I know you can’t stand Akashi, and that my own interactions with him distress you. If you prefer it, we’ll leave this alone.”

Takao blinked. “You think it’s wrong of Hayama to refuse to solve this for the sake of his undead boyfriend, but you would drop it, just like that? For me?”

Midorima held his eyes. “There is very little,” he said, serious and slow, “that I would not do for you.”

Takao—his heart thundering in his chest—reached up and pulled him down to kiss him, hard.

Midorima didn’t resist, his mouth soft and so warm in the late autumn chill, his breath leaving his nose in a sigh as Takao let the kiss soften, wanting to explore that warmth like—god, like he’d never wanted anything. He opened his mouth experimentally and to his delight Midorima followed suit, the hand not linked with Takao’s coming up to tangle in his hair, and. This was neither shortcut or disaster, this was—he’d always thought he would have to coax, he always thought whatever feelings Midorima had would have to be pulled, grudging, like blood from a stone but—this was the blossoming of a flower, an opening up, an _offering_ up, and it was utterly dizzying. 

Midorima sagged, his mouth dragging against Takao’s cheekbone as they both took a second to breathe. “Hn,” said Midorima, and kissed the corner of Takao’s eye.

“Yeah,” said Takao, and grinned against his jaw. “Shin-chan. We can work with Akashi on this mystery all you want so long as you only ever kiss me like that.”

“Idiot,” said Midorima, very softly, his mouth shifting down Takao’s cheek again to move against his lips. “I will only kiss you at all.”

+

Hayama closed the door behind Midorima and Takao and leaned on it, letting out a long breath. He made his way through the maze of boxes, shifting a few aside, and pulled open the door to the basement.

Izuki was still sitting in the space he’d cleared for him, his back against an old chest of drawers, what was left of his legs crossed in front of him. He used one of his hands to raise his other arm in a wave. “Hey,” he said, sounding weary. He always sounded weary, these days.

Hayama gnawed on his lip. “Hey,” he said. “How, um. How are you feeling?”

Izuki smiled slightly. “Bone tired,” he said, and then, half-heartedly, “ha.”

Hayama tried to muster up a smile, but he couldn’t get Midorima’s words out of his head. _Do you think he enjoys this mockery of a life?_

He settled cross-legged on the floor across from his friend. Izuki watched him, the bone of his face too obvious, the light in his eyes dull. Hayama thought about the books he had upstairs, the weird concoction he was pretty sure he made wrong that was steaming ominously on his stove. He looked at the inexpert stitching at Izuki’s ankle where he’d tried to reattach his foot.

_Have you asked him what he wants?_

“Hey,” Hayama said. “Um. Can I ask you something?”

**Author's Note:**

> this one got so long?? sorry. also the basement literally doesn't come in until the end bc midotaka had too many fucking feelings


End file.
